Hermann von Helmholtz Quotes

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Just as a physicist has to examine the telescope and galvanometer with which he is working; has to get a clear conception of what he can attain with them, and how they may deceive him; so, too, it seemed to me necessary to investigate likewise the capabilities of our power of thought.

Hermann von Helmholtz
The last decades of scientific development have led us to the recognition of a new universal law of all natural phenomena, which, from its extraordinarily extended range, and from the connection which it constitutes between natural phenomena of all kinds, even of the remotest times and the most distant places, is especially fitted to give us an idea of what I have described as the character of the natural sciences, which I have chosen as the subject of this lecture.

Hermann von Helmholtz
I think the facts leave no doubt that the very mightiest among the chemical forces are of electric origin. The atoms cling to their electric charges, and opposite electric charges cling to each other.

Hermann von Helmholtz
Nature as a whole possesses a store of force which cannot in any way be either increased or diminished... therefore, the quantity of force in Nature is just as eternal and unalterable as the quantity of matter.... I have named [this] general law "The Principle of the Conservation of Force."

Hermann von Helmholtz
In speaking of the work of machines and of natural forces we must, of course, in this comparison eliminate anything in which activity of intelligence comes into play. The latter is also capable of the hard and intense work of thinking, which tries a man just as muscular exertion does.

Hermann von Helmholtz
There is a kind, I might almost say, of artistic satisfaction, when we are able to survey the enormous wealth of Nature as a regularly ordered whole — a kosmos, an image of the logical thought of our own mind.

Hermann von Helmholtz
The formation of scales and of the web of harmony is a product of artistic invention, and is in no way given by the natural structure or by the natural behaviour of our hearing, as used to be generally maintained hitherto.

Hermann von Helmholtz
As you are aware, no perceptions obtained by the senses are merely sensations impressed on our nervous systems. A peculiar intellectual activity is required to pass from a nervous sensation to the conception of an external object, which the sensation has aroused. The sensations of our nerves of sense are mere symbols indicating certain external objects, and it is usually only after considerable practice that we acquire the power of drawing correct conclusions from our sensations respecting the corresponding objects.

Hermann von Helmholtz
The quantity of force which can be brought into action in the whole of Nature is unchangeable, and can neither be increased nor diminished.

Hermann von Helmholtz
A metaphysical conclusion is either a false conclusion or a concealed experimental conclusion.

Hermann von Helmholtz
Whoever, in the pursuit of science, seeks after immediate practical utility, may generally rest assured that he will seek in vain. All that science can achieve is a perfect knowledge and a perfect understanding of the action of natural and moral forces.

Hermann von Helmholtz
There can no longer be any doubt that light waves consist of electric vibrations in the all-pervading ether, and that the latter possesses the properties of an insulator and a magnetic medium.

Hermann von Helmholtz
We have taught the forces of inanimate nature to minister to the wants of human life and the designs of the human intellect.

Hermann von Helmholtz
The whole process of algebraical calculation is a purely logical operation; it can yield no relation between the quantities submitted to it that is not already contained in the equations which give occasion for its being applied.

Hermann von Helmholtz
Of all the subjects to which the thought and imagination of man could turn, the question as to the origin of the world has, since remote antiquity, been the favorite arena of the wildest speculation.

Hermann von Helmholtz
Windmills, which are used in the great plains of Holland and North Germany to supply the want of falling water, afford another instance of the action of velocity. The sails are driven by air in motion - by wind.

Hermann von Helmholtz
Physico-Mechanical laws are, as it were, the telescopes of our spiritual eyes which can penetrate into the deepest night of time, past and to come.

Hermann von Helmholtz
A moving body whose motion was not retarded by any resisting force would continue to move to all eternity.

Hermann von Helmholtz
To flee into an ideal world is a false resource of transient success; it only facilitates the play of the adversary; and when knowledge only reflects itself, it becomes unsubstantial and empty, or resolves itself into illusions and phrase.

Hermann von Helmholtz
Meanwhile solitary inquirers are always from time to time appearing who become so deeply entangled in complicated trains of reasoning that they can no longer discover their mistakes and believe they have solved the problem.

Hermann von Helmholtz